Over the last 10 years, I’ve written over 1000 articles on this blog to share my thoughts, observations, mistakes, and insights with my fellow creators. That’s a lot of content to go back and read for someone who is navigating the crowdfunding process for the first time, so in this series I continue to revisit my Kickstarter Lesson posts in chronological order, highlighting the core elements of each.
How to Run a Game Expansion Kickstarter Campaign (#76): Before I put Tuscany (expansion to Viticulture) on Kickstarter, I compiled data from other expansion Kickstarter campaigns and attempted to learn some lessons. The major trend I notice between all but one of these expansion campaigns is the creators increased their funding goals from the original campaign. Many prices went up as well, almost as if they charged too little the first time around and didn’t want to make the same mistake. In general, the 4 lessons I took away from this are: (1) Price the expansion at a lower price than the original game and offer the two together at a slight discount, (2) launch the expansion campaign about 12-18 months after the original campaign ends, (3) keep the focus on the expansion by only offering the original game as part of a combo pack, and (4) don’t assume everyone knows about the original campaign.
The 10 Reasons I’ll Back a Kickstarter Project (#77): As I wrote this list, I realized these are things that a Kickstarter project should almost always have. So in a way, this is a checklist for you to check off when creating your campaign. For that reason, I highly recommend reading the full article. But in short, the 10 things I look for include: art, graphic design, value, engagement, uniqueness, competence, passion, generosity, quality, and pliability. Keep in mind, though, that it’s not like I pull out a checklist every time I look at a project. It’s these elements that drive that gut feeling I get that tips me from potential backer to actual backer.
Creating Card Prototypes for Third-Party Reviewers (#78): Here’s a guest post by Michael Iachini about how to create card prototypes for reviewers. Nowadays there are so many “print on demand” game printing services, they’re almost assumed to be the default choice, but Michael covers a lot of other possibilities too. Reviewers are pretty forgiving when it comes to the quality of the prototypes–they understand that one of the reasons you’re putting the game on Kickstarter is to raise money for nice art and graphic design.
Cancellations (#79): I’ve talked about mentally bracing yourself for cancellations in KS Lesson #38, but there’s a lot more to learn about the topic, especially when you’re experiencing it firsthand. Casey Willett and Aaron Yung join us in this lesson to talk about their experience sending a survey to backers who chose to cancel their pledges. While many of the responses are predictable (“limited budget” accounts for roughly 59% of respondents), many other responses included great feedback for Casey and Aaron’s future projects, including feedback on stretch goals, Kickstarter exclusives, and project goals. Check out how they phrased their survey request in the full lesson.
How to Create Community Through Conversation on Kickstarter (#80): In this lesson I delve into the different types of Kickstarter comments (from backers and creators), with the goal of highlighting the types of comments that build community versus the comments that—despite the best of intentions—don’t accomplish that goal. My general recommendation is to avoid cut-and-paste comments, minute-by-minute project updates, as well as comments about other projects. But do focus on (and encourage) comments that create community. This includes general questions and answers about the project, backers engaging with the project via personal anecdotes, congratulatory comments, and last but not least, creator comments that communicate your presence and actively moderate the discussion.
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If you have any questions or thoughts about these topics, feel free to share in the comments!
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2 Comments on “Quick Kickstarter Lesson Recaps: #76-80”
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This will likely be my shortest comment left to date, Jamey, but, I find these lesson ‘recaps’ here to be very useful/helpful.
To go even a step further, perhaps, once all these ‘recaps’ articles are completed…also, having a single article that also consolidates/links to all of these recap articles, as well?
Did that make sense?
Not sure if that would be overdoing it or not, however would make it a little easier to find all of these if they can all be referenced/linked to from/in one single, central, consolidated location (rather than looking back through all your articles) to find each one.
Thanks and hope you/your family had a good holiday!
Thanks Howie! I like the idea of eventually having them all in one centralized location. There’s also a section of my crowdfunding book that includes short summaries of 125+ lessons.